From bouncing around my favorite corners of the Internet, I get the impression that large numbers of people have "a guy" (of any gender), akin to a weed dealer in furtiveness and legality, who is hooking them up with an underground, probably Plex-based (but increasingly moving to Jellyfin), streaming service. I get the impression that there are hundreds to thousands of these little "Plex server" operations, each serving a couple dozen to a hundred or so users out of the goodness/vileness of each "guy"'s heart and the hobby budget of that "guy"'s homelab. This isn't all Plex gets used for or even necessarily the main use case, but I think they're out there.
Obviously no "guy" will admit to doing this, but my "Plex Server Guy Theory" neatly explains this post announcing that general discussions of piracy are allowed in the Lemmy.ml Plex community and this post by someone apparently serving enough new Plex user volume that a webhook would be convenient to have. I've also seen people discussing Plex refer to "my users", as if they have a user base of friends and trusted or semi-trustred acquaintances rather than just a household or family.
I personally neither have nor am a "Plex Server Guy", nor do I know anyone who has admitted to me that they do have or are one, so I can't be sure they really exist. But I have suspicions.
Are "Plex Server Guys" as I imagine them real and common and I am just too square to have ever been invited to do crimes with everyone else? Are they rare in real life but enriched in the dubious/cool corners of the Internet? Does it depend on your country? What's the deal?
I am Plex Guy, my friend is Plex Guy, between the 2 of us we share our servers to over a dozen people. My mom and grandma use my server in another state, I don't charge anyone access. In total I have 8 users on my server, my friend has probably the same on his, with both of us giving access to a different friend meaning he has access to double the amount of content.
I got absolutely fed up with subscription services raising prices and removing content (I only ever had Hulu and Netflix) so I just built my own service. My only subscription now is a Tidal family plan for myself, my wife and my mom.
Also it's interesting how between these 2 servers, they're built differently. I built mine using TrueNAS and housed it in a dedicated PC case large enough for all the drives, my buddy made his as a Windows server, and has everything wall mounted with custom 3D printed brackets.
Also, when I go to Brazil for vacation, my content isn't region locked, it's at home in a box on my living room that I just access with no VPN or any bullshit needed.